Bulls try to bounce back heading into Senior Day

The USF women’s soccer team is in unfamiliar territory coming off of back-to-back losses last weekend, a first for the Bulls this season, as they prepare to face Memphis and Rutgers this weekend at Corbett Soccer Stadium.

Looking for a turnaround after losing 3-0 to Louisville and 3-2 to Cincinnati on the road, the Bulls enter the week hoping to end their losing streak against the Tigers (9-5-0, 2-3-0) on Friday night and Scarlet Knights(11-2-1, 4-1-0) on Sunday.

In preparation for the weekend, USF coach Denise Schilte-Brown has her team focusing on training with the mindset of consistency.

“When you’re on the road, there’s that downtime in between practices when you’re together traveling,” she said. “There’s a lot of that, and when you don’t have any intensity training, it’s hard to keep that mentality on the road.”

Junior forward Demi Stokes said the team is working on correcting mistakes from last weekend, and one of those mistakes was not executing a game strategy.

“We went up 2-1, and we kept going and going and I think that because we had the mentality in our favor, we got caught up in the moment,” Stokes said. “It’s just being more game savvy — being more smart and recognizing different stages of the game.”

Stokes said being back home is refreshing after a tough road trip.

USF (7-4-3, 2-3-0) is undefeated at home as it approaches its final two home games against the Tigers and Scarlet Knights, the Sunday match being Senior Day.

With senior forward Sharla Passariello and senior goalkeeper Hannah Jasurda playing their last regular season home game Sunday, they serve as an “inspiration” to some of the youngerplayers.

Freshman forward Jordyn Listro is one of those players.

“They’re always keeping their selfless attitude,” she said. “They’re always picking us up. They’re always looking out for us, making sure that we are on the right track with academics.”

Schilte-Brown said she never gets sad on Senior Day. Instead, she said, she’s enthusiastic about “the women they are becoming.”

The Tigers and Scarlet Knights travel to Tampa with victories over Houston and SMU from last weekend — both of which USF still has on the schedule following this weekend.

Led by junior forward Kaitlyn Atkins, who leads the American Athletic Conference with 11 assists, Memphis is second in the conference in assists with 30, averaging two assists a game, and third in goals with 33, averaging two goals a game.